This has got to have been the worst cold I’ve had in years! I’m back at work but the constant stream of snuffling and sneezing is pissing off the troops, rather. Lets hope I get a decent voice back for this weekend’s podcasts.

Another day out with my Dad today, so blew a few cobwebs away with a visit to Bognor Regis. Been quite a few years since I’ve been – and will probably be a few more before I go back again. Bit boring out of season. Plus I’m getting a bit of a cold, so not 100%.

On a lighter note, had a chat with the Clitheroe Kid earlier on and he said he’s off to see "Los Capesinos" at Colchester tonight. So that makes at least three podcasters, me, Rowley Cutler and Peter Clitheroe, who’ve been in the audience. I dare say a few others would have headed along as well if they’d been in their area. Marvellous!

My Dad is having a couple of days visiting this week, so today we took a look at Chatham Historic Dockyard. It was a very cold day with a biting wind, but it was interesting. Some older warships like HMS Gannet (above) and HMS Cavalier (below), the latter of which reminded my Dad of times on troop ships in WWII.

Great set by all the bands, although the Lead singer of LC, Gareth, did say that the Glokenspiel had been damaged by a stage invastion the previous night in Birmingham and the "B" key was sounding a bit flat. Needsless to say by the end of the evening the Glokenspiel had hit the deck and was in pieces. I hope they managed to buy a new one before their Lonfon performance, when my podcasting mate Rowley Cutler, of Dark Compass, was due to see them!

Had a great evening at Fletching Bonfire last night. Fletching is a very small village in East Sussex, but has a great reputation, wlong with many of the Sussex villages for bonfire nights, in and around November 5th, which, of course, we celebrate in the UK as "Guy Fawkes night". Guy Fawkes was a Catholic who was protesting at the persecution Catholics were receiving at the hands of King James I, and on the 5th November 1605 decided to blow up The House of Lords, with the King in it. He failed and was executed.

It’s interesting that the celebrations, in some villages, such as Lewis, involve symbolic stoning of the Pope and very many pagan cymbols, such as the flaming brands and, almost KKK style apparel. It’s interesting that we’re effectively celebrating the excution of a terrorist. Would we do the same for the 9/11 or 6/6 terrorists perhaps?

I have to say I’d never heard of "machinina", the mash-up of gaming technology with cinema, until I listened to the 16th October episode of BBC 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs, which explained rather a lot. Not only was this episode of the podcast front-ended with an introduction by my fellow music podcaster Gabor Kovacs from the Electrical Language Podcast, but also featured Andrew Hugill, from De Montford University (which is one of the places I’d visited with my son on an open day) who’d organised the first Machinima Festival Europe 07.

Alsoe nice to see Microsoft (the current Cogle family billpayer) being involved in helping out with a Halo 3 Movie!

If you’ve not already tuned into either of my podcasts, then you’ll have missed out on that excellent resource that is jamendo.com. And this week they managed to host over 5000 creative commons licensed albums. That’s 5000 albums you can download and share with your friends for free!

So, half term is coming up and the whole family is looking forward to some looooooong lie-ins and some afternoon naps! It’s still going to be pretty busy, with bonfire night, gigs, my Dad coming to visit and get togethers with friends, but at least we’ll get a chance to stop burning the candle at BOTH ends!

Having a blessed day working from home today, after several days of absolutely terrible commuting. But rather than bore you with a picture of the M25, which I use every day, here’s a picture of the railway viaduct at Balcome which I pass eash day. On a day like today (glorious and fresh) it’s a joy to view as I go past. Amazing thing is when you pass over it on the train to London you have absolutely no sensation of being on a bridge or viaduct at all.